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If you have read my previous reactions, you might know I generally hate auctions, estate sales, surplus sales, etc..
In the past decade, everything has become so inflated, it’s hard to find a good deal, if a deal is to be had at all. Even if there are interesting things there.
Even my states surplus division (good old New York) who used to sell surplus via sealed bid, which made very good deals possible, went to selling stuff on Ebay instead for the payday. Check nysstore on ebay to see how ridiculous the pricing is.
Anyway, I dragged myself to a surplus sale at my local community college, of which, they have two a year on average. Everything is a dollar.
Walked right up to a Sony PVM that nobody saw. Bought it for a buck.
Tested and sold for $600 within 4 hours.
Morale: auction and surplus guys, keep at it. And check community colleges.

Thearchivebooks,

Thanks for the post, very informative.

I work at a facility in VA where we have pallets and pallets of ‘70s era HP test equipment. Because it’s gov property, it all goes to Richmond VA.

There, it’s quickly inventoried, shrink wrapped to a pallet and sent off somewhere, I have no idea where. I would love to know where it goes. Those old HP boards are pretty nice.

Any ideas as to where stuff from a gov surplus warehouse in Richmond VA might wind up? Been trying for a couple of years to figure this out, always turn up blank.

Well, since it is government property, you can bet your bottom dollar that if (and that’s a big ass if) they decide to sell it, it would be through govdeals.org, and they are hilariously terrible to deal with.
Some of the prices aren’t bad, but if the deal goes through as intended and the seller doesn’t indicate that you picked up the items you paid for, they will quickly ban you and the whole process is a joke.
I had some Dept. of Navy computers dropped off by the wife of a recently deceased Navy calibration guy and was quickly contacted by my local FBI field office and ordered to surrender the computers. A friend in the agency told me that they basically end up in a warehouse (think Raiders of the Lost Ark) regardless of whether or not there’s any classified data there.

Actually there’s a few and it’s more like Crystal Skull. Anything. Everything. Tag it. Bag it. Stash it. Forget it.

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That’s just silly.

Most of this stuff is ancient and obsolete. Not to mention, no longer supported by the manufacturers, so, no more repair services either. And much of the stuff needs repair.

One would think they’d want payment of any sort for this trash and yet, they pay to have it stashed away in some environmentally controlled space to some degree and watched over. Again, paying someone to do so. Ahh, the wacky machinations of the Lords who watch over us. Cough cough....

Makes sense though, but no, it doesn’t.

I have dealt with govdeals.com for about 17 years and just in the last year have I had problems where I paid for and picked up items and still was notified that I need to pick them up with one notification being sent out just after I picked the items up and it was three days before time limit was up. I was informed it was a computer notification error. The other times the main office was notified of the pick up but did not input the information. It took a couple of phone calls to straighten out each occurrence. Govdeals does have pick ups in Richmond Va but they may be state and local but not federal and of course everything tech is going crazy price wise in Washington DC,Baltimore, and Richmond areas with the big money guys driving the prices up. I am on Eastern Shore of Maryland and even here the big money guys from across the Bay are driving the prices out of reach for the scrapper.
Even the towers with windows xp and vista which are not good for much except scrap unless you do not use windows as OS are going for $20 each which is way beyond scrap value.

Like I’ve said from the beginning, to anyone that is still listening....
Get e-waste for nothing by going to shops, go door to door, etc.
This is the only surefire way to make any money, unless you plan on refurbing the stuff, that is a different story.
Don’t ever spend money on pallets of scrap unless you can get them for a couple bucks, which is impossible these days. More to my point, therefore auctions are out. Aside from the rare dollar finds that yield great profits, you’ll spend cash faster than the Fed and never get into the black trying to chase the dream. The dream is awareness and that is free, when folks become aware that you take stuff for free, you’ll never have to bother with corrupt auctions or folks trying to drive you up.

And as for the feds and the equipment, it’s not so much the equipment as the information, classified or otherwise, they think is on it. After they verify whats there, they simply wipe and do nothing with the remains (FBI intel analyst verified).
There are regulations and ISO stuff they have to follow, which means they have to hang onto stuff for a defined period of time before they can dispose of it, much the same way you have to hang onto seven years of tax information before you can shred it, in case of auditing. Even the feds have internal auditors.

I buy to upgrade my personal computer or that of family members if I see better computers at auction. Then if I win the auction I get an upgraded computer much cheaper than I could buy for retail and I have the other computers for the ram to max out the personal computers and for scrap value to help offset cost. Of course you pay the value that you know will beat the system (in other words you save yourself money, sometimes big money, by doing it this way). I know most computers now days would be good for the normal person for years to come. I like playing the game of beating the system it is like a hobby for me since I am retired and still adding to my scrap stash for a trip to Boardsort (this time I am going to check out all five Great Lakes in one trip) in about a year with enough scrap to pay for a nice vacation so I turn it into a win-win situation with recycling and seeing our great country. I am actually talking about the country itself with all of its wonders.